“Shiloh,” he grunts, and there is no pretense left in his voice. “If you want me to stop, say it. Now.”
I shake my head. The thought of stopping makes my lungs ache. “Don’t stop,” I hiss, my tone bleeding with need. “Please.”
He presses into me, and the first push is a heaven-splitting kind of violence that makes me see stars. But the pain quickly blurs into ecstasy as his hands splay on my hips, anchoring me as we start on a steady rhythm. Every tilt of his hips answers one of mine. Every grunt, every breath is a map back to the part of me I thought was lost. When he speeds up, it’s an intimate conversation of our bodies.
He leans down, teeth grazing my ear. “You’re mine tonight, Shiloh,” he whispers, the possessiveness a vow and a thrill all at once.
I wrap my legs around him, pulling him deeper. “Then show me,” I say, voice cracked. “Show me how much.”
He does. He fucks me like he’s desperate to prove something to himself and to me, like my pleasure is a ledger he needs to balance. His hands rake down my sides, fingers digging in, and the pressure makes me see colors. He leans down and kisses that soft place where my hip meets my thigh—ridiculous and intimate—and I swear I could dissolve into him.
“You taste like peaches and bad decisions,” he mutters, lifting his head once more.
I pull him closer and bite him, hard, then smooth it with a kiss. “You’re the best bad decision I’ve ever made,” I whisper back.
We move faster, the angles changing, his hand cupping and trembling against the sweet spot inside me. His name becomes a chorus—Cole, Cole, Cole—until it’s less a name and more an invocation.
My walls squeeze around him, my nails scoring the soft meat of his back while he says every swear he’s ever learned into my hair.
When I come, it’s violent and beautiful. A wave that makes me sob and laugh all at once. He doesn’t stop; he rides it through, grounding me with the press of his chest, the steady, focused drive of his hips. His own release follows, urgent and hot, his voice cracking as he calls my name.
We collapse back onto the desk in a ridiculous tangle of limbs. He lies on top of me, buries his face in my neck, breathing like he just ran a marathon. Tears prick my eyelids, not from pain, not from fear, but from the ridiculous, incandescent relief of being seen and chosen.
Lifting his head, he brushes a few dark brown strands away from my face, his thumb wiping under my eye. “Are you okay?” he asks again, voice small with intimacy.
I nod, throat tight. “I am now.”
He smiles, then straightens up. “We should clean up and go back out before they notice.”
I nod as I sit up.
“I didn’t expect this tonight,” he murmurs. “But I’m not sorry.”
“Neither am I,” I smile back.
He kisses my temple, the gesture so tender it tugs at the part of my heart I only reserve for him.
A laugh, bright and oblivious, drifts through the door, reminding us of the world outside. We pull apart and start getting redressed. When we’re done, we pad out into the corridor, and Town Hall swallows us again, a warm ocean of movement and heat.
Fairy lights weave across the rafters like captive stars, glowing over tables draped in white and gold. The air smells like roses and expensive champagne. Every seat is filled, every corner buzzing with laughter and the clinking of glasses.
What’s the occasion, you may ask?
My brothers, Jace and Beck, got married today and decided to invite the whole town to celebrate.
Two men who used to wrestle over the last pancake are now standing at the front, faces split into ridiculous smiles as they kiss their brides under an arch of flowers.
Beck holds Quinn, the mayor’s daughter, like she’s the most precious thing in the world, and Jace has never looked happier, his grip around Tessa’s waist as possessive as it is protective.
I feel Cole’s warmth against my back, reminding me of his presence. I turn around, and our eyes lock.
Cole Alden Dawson—owner and CEO of Dawson Construction, the biggest construction company in South Texas. I’ve had a crush on him since I was six, when he accompanied his father for a construction job on Iron Stallion, our family ranch. He was sixteen then, and I thought he was the cutest boy to ever live—he still is, only he’s all man now.
He’s always been the boy turned man I have a crush on, until an hour ago, when we collided on the dance floor.
He asked me to dance, and I said yes because who’d pass up a chance to dance with the man they’ve had a crush on for two decades? Plus, I needed the distraction.
On the dance floor, we swayed with the music, traded the small warm talk that lets two people measure each other again after ages apart. He told me about his separation from his wife, Calista, and how the divorce is hard on everyone, especially his nine-year-old daughter, Aria.
